Aboriginal Arts and Culture. History, biography.

POOR BUGGER ME: Bill LEAK

When I heard about Bill Leak’s death, I felt a little guilty. I didn’t like the man he had become, but I certainly didn’t wish him dead. Then I heard or saw reports from numerous people I have respect for, saying what a wonderful caring and witty man he was, and in deference I removed the blog I had written about him a year ago. Then I saw The Weekend Australian, which devoted six and a half full pages to him, including the whole of the letters section and the whole of the editorial. A stranger to this country reading the Oz for the first time this week-end would be in no doubt that we had lost a figure akin to, – nay, exceeding the reputation of Nelson Mandela. Mandela’s suffering over twenty seven years in prison? Piffle!

What about the suffering of a man who had the means to attack whoever he liked (or disliked) on a daily basis, with the option of writing in his defence in that same daily, and with the editorials of the only national newspaper in the country staunchly in his favour. This poor man I will have you know, was willfully attacked for depicting Aboriginal men as ugly drunken no-hopers. He hated the Greens, the Human Rights Commission, and the Trade Unions/Labor Party. He never ever made a cartoon on behalf of refugees, or anyone on the lower rungs of life. Practically all of his cartoons over the past few years were designed to offend, rather than inform. Worse, they were not funny. Here’s the restored blog.

Poor Bill Leak. Now I’m not going to say that he was on the piss with one of the great dickheads of our time, and fell off a porch as pissed as a parrot and damaged his brain, (particularly the bit which makes one funny) because that might not be true. It is a worry however, to see someone who is really struggling with their craft kept in the employ of the only national newspaper in the country, pouring out the drivel which he does, day after day after day. The poor man demonstrates the seriousness of his struggle when he latches onto a single idea, which he trots out for weeks, if not months on end. For example, he gets the idea that Kevin Rudd looks something like Tin-Tin, so he draws him like this for a couple of years. Hilarious!

And of course those who might or might not get on the piss with multi-millionaire wankers and fall arse-up off the toff’s porch would naturally hate the Labor Party and the trade union movement. So what could be funnier for someone who might or might not be suffering from irreparable brain damage, than to depict Bill Shorten as a puppet, operated by a thuggish trade unionist with CFMEU stamped across his shirt. So funny! Especially the first time, and perhaps the second time and maybe the third and possibly the forth, and struggling the fifth, and perhaps not quite so hilarious the thirteenth or fourteenth time. This was Leak’s attempt to destroy Bill Shorten in the lead-up to the recent election. It failed miserably.

But would you believe it? After Malcolm Turnbull was left with egg on his face after the election, Mr Leak was so pissed off with his hero that he depicted him as King Louis XIV dressed in his fine regalia for day after day after day after day. So funny! Alas our hero was running out of funny, but then came the perfect opportunity for someone who might just be a wanker who gets full of piss at his rich mate’s mansion and falls off the porch and lands on his head to demonstrate just how superior he is to trash like the working people of Australia and those who fight for their rights, and those even lower, the Blackfellow. For it doesn’t matter how big a wanker you are, you can always attack the Blackfellow if you need to convince yourself that you are superior to someone. And with the power of the most widely distributed newspaper in the country, it is just so easy.

Ah, but poor Bill. He has now depicted himself as the victim, being cruelly dragged off by a policeman, and delivered into the arms of a a vicious lefty (you can tell he is a lefty, because he has a beard) who is armed with a noose and a club, with a big nail in it. Almost as thuggish as those CFMEU terrorists. Keep it up Bill. Show us your pain for the next week or two as you try to think of something fresh, and new, and perhaps even funny to say.

Who knows, you may yet convince us that the real victims in our society are not the poor, not the dispossessed, not the imprisoned, but the upper class snobs who get pissed with their millionaire mates and fall off the porch and damage their brains. Not that this is what happened to you of course. I have heard you state that you were not drinking at the time, and I have no reason to doubt you. After all, that could be stereotyping.

Thank heavens that the person behind that nasty propaganda (hate to call them cartoons) is gone. But I blame the Aus for publishing such bile. They diddn’t have to and people can only ask why they would want to.